You don't have to look very hard in the moonbatosphere to find some liberals spouting gibberish about the shrinking middle class and how terrible life has been for Americans under Republican rule. Well, yes, the middle class has shrunk over the last 20 years, but not for the reasons the moonbats give.
There are 12 percent more households earning in excess of $100,000 than 20 or so years ago. And those making less than $30,000 have not increased. So virtually the entire "decline" of the middle-class group has come from people moving up the income ladder, not down.
There's no doubt that the pressure of transportation costs and health care costs has put a squeeze on middle America of late, but that's probably as much due to the fact that prices have stayed relatively low for decades even as incomes have risen.
Those in the middle, and below, are also living better. As William Robert Fogel, the Nobel Prize-winning economic historian, put it, "In every measure that we have bearing on the standard of living . . . the gains of the lower classes have been far greater than those experienced by the population as a whole." Among the inequalities that have narrowed: The quality of goods at the more moderate price levels has improved faster than at higher price tags; rich and poor are less apart in life expectancy, height, and leisure. It's the attitude of Americans that explains the low combustibility (at the moment!) of income inequality. Most Americans tend to believe that people bear primary responsibility for supporting themselves and that market forces are immune to public policy. There's a reflection here of the optimism and confidence characteristic of American life. In one study by Roland Benabou, more than half of Americans think they will be above the median income in the future (even though that is mathematically impossible). Americans, quite simply, believe that plenty of opportunities exist to get ahead, and, indeed, 82 percent of those born into poverty are much better off than their parents and more than a third of them have made it into the middle class or higher.
Education is another great American success story. There has been a dramatic increase in the percentage of adults completing high school and college. Nearly 90 percent of all adults get high school diplomas today compared with 33 percent in 1947; college graduates have soared from 5.4 percent in 1947 to almost 30 percent today. More than two thirds of Americans concur with the statement that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill—the largest percentage across 27 countries taking part in an international survey of social attitudes. This reflects the widespread belief in the ability to get ahead and helps explain why Americans are more accepting of economic inequality than peoples in other countries and why Americans are less likely to believe their government should take responsibility for reducing income disparity.
I often use my family's anecdotal experience to illustrate the greater point of American exceptionalism. My father didn't even have a high school diploma, yet, through hard work and sacrifice, raised a family and put two of his three kids through college. All three of those families live relatively comfortably now, and two of those families live well above the income level on which we were raised.
Our family is not the exception. Most people I run into, particularly married people, are far better off than their parents could have anticipated. It's not just that we can buy cheap electronic doodads that were unavailable (or prohibitively priced) in the 1970s; it's that so many of the things we take for granted make our lives more pleasant and more interesting as well as just easier.
UPDATE: *smacks forehead* I guess it helps if I link to the article I quote from. Sorry about that.
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